


A Basketful Of Picnics

by graestu



Category: Doctor Who
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:41:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25612258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/graestu/pseuds/graestu
Summary: The Doctor goes on a series of picnics with Bill and Nardole; then with Graham, Yaz and Ryan.
Kudos: 6





	1. An Embarrassing Picnic

The Doctor thought to himself, "This would be a good time to tell them The Bizarre Secret Of Saturn's Rings, they'd like that."

He and Bill and Nardole were sitting in the feathery pink grass of an unnamed planet. They'd enjoyed a picnic, and were quietly reading.

Just as he was about to speak, Bill gave a snorting laugh.

"What's so funny?" asked Nardole.

"Not particularly funny," said Bill. She had a copy of Mwah! magazine. "But they always ask celebrities the same question, _'What was your most embarrassing moment?'_ "

"I bet he's got a few," said Nardole, nodding towards The Doctor.

"I bet!" said Bill, then, "Hey, Doctor. What was you most embarrassing moment?"

The Doctor gave his friends a warm nostalgic smile.

"You mean like when I was working for UNIT back in the... 1970s or 80s ? - it's all so long ago, it's like it happened to someone else - when I disguised myself as a tea lady to break into a secret submarine base...?"

Bill and Nardole stared open mouthed.

"What?" said The Doctor, "We've all done it. You want something more recent? Well, a while ago, I thought it would be interesting to visit George Eliot. Actually, Mary Ann Evans, English novelist, 1819-1880, though she doesn't know that last bit. I set the TARDIS coordinates for the village of Ashbourne in the Peak District, but when I stepped out, I was at a television studio, and made rather a fool of myself on a live morning programme on BBC2. Come to think of it, I say live, it hasn't been on yet, maybe I can do something to distract people from watching it... Anyway, this woman said, "Are you a doctor?", and I said, "I'm THE Doctor", and she pulled me into a discussion about the cyber attack on the NHS in May 2017. I'm afraid I got the wrong end of the stick... Still, I learnt a very important lesson about accuracy when typing. I was only one letter out. I was trying to get to Victorian Derbyshire."

"All that for that," said Bill, which was becoming a bit of a habit.

{Because, for non UK readers, Victoria Derbyshire is a journalist with her own show. Oh well, it amused me.}


	2. Another Embarrassing Picnic

The Doctor had chosen another unnamed planet for one of their picnics. It looked unpromising at first, being covered with grey rocks. However, they were so light and spongey, it proved to be a very comfortable spot.

Bill groaned at a feature in her copy of Mwah! magazine.

Nardole peered over her shoulder and read out the headline, _'The Baked Potato's Advice column'_.

"No, not that," said Bill. "That's the only thing worth reading these days. Opposite page. A typically incompetent celebrity interview. They always ask the same questions whoever it is. Andy Murray this time. I could do better myself. There's a Wimbledon story I'm dying to know."

The Doctor's ears pricked up, and always eager to do a good turn for one of his friends, said, "That could be arranged."

"Me interview Andy Murray? Brilliant!" said Bill, not daring to believe it.

"It might take a minute or so..." said The Doctor, nipping into the TARDIS.

"He's gone to get him," laughed Nardole.

"Not quite," said The Doctor, emerging again. He explained, "I used the scanner to find him. He's a guest on a local radio phone-in. So, with some electronic jiggery-pokery, you, Bill, are the first caller. Get in there, and when the record ends, be ready with your question."

She squeezed past him and picked up the console's receiver.

" _That was 'If I Could Turn Back Time' by Cher_ ," said the host. " _Our first caller is Mr Bill Potts._ "

The Doctor closed the door quietly and winced.

"Whoops. Not a good start," he sighed. "We'll let her have her privacy. We'll listen later on the T-Player."

Nardole nudged The Doctor, showed him the magazine, and mimicked what he thought Bill might be saying, "What was your most embarrassing moment?..."

The TARDIS door slammed open, as the fuming Bill stomped out.

"Couldn't think of a question?" smiled Nardole.

"Oh, I thought of a question. And I asked it. And now I've got a better one for you." She pointed angrily at The Doctor.

"Why?" she almost screamed in exasperation. "Why did you think I wanted to talk about Wimbledon with Andie-Marie, the nine year old baton twirling runner up from Britain's Got Talent?"


	3. A Puzzling Picnic

"Have you spotted anything unusual about the sea?" asked The Doctor mysteriously.

He was with Bill and Nardole on one of their regular picnics, sitting on a beach of purple sand. The sea was like unset lime jelly.

Nardole studied the scene carefully, and eventually concluded, "It's coming in."

He continued watching for any unexpected developments.

Bill looked up from the puzzle page in her copy of Mwah! magazine, and said, "What's another word for alternative? Now it's going back out again."

"It's different," said Nardole.

"Well done!" said The Doctor. "That's right."

"No, it's wrong," said Bill. "Too many letters."

"I meant the sea," said The Doctor. "If you watch closely, you'll see that it's coming in when it should be going out, and going out when it should be coming in. Isn't that something!"

"Or opposite," said Nardole.

The Doctor looked hurt, until Nardole added, "I meant for Bill's crossword."

"That's it!" said Bill. "O,R : 'OR' "

The Doctor could tell from the mischievous twinkle in Bill's eyes that she was really ridiculing the people who set such stupidly easy competitions and treat solvers as idiots.

"That leaves just one," she said. " _'Something that good people act with'_ ."

"The Royal Shakespeare Company," said Nardole confidently.

"No... It doesn't fit. I think I might have gone wrong somewhere. Will you check it for me?"

Bill handed the magazine to Nardole who mumbled all the questions and answers to himself in his familiar sing-song way.

"That all seems to be in order. Although you might have to change this one. The clue is _'One direction - four letters'_. That'll be East, West, Left, or Down."

And he handed it back.

Bill spotted the correction right away.

"Of course!" she said. "It's all so obvious now! It's East. Then I've got the A in that square. And so, _'What good people act with'_ is..."

"Tact," suggested The Doctor.

But Bill was already filling in the final answer, and having completed the puzzle, read it out triumphantly, "Honorificabilitudinity!"


	4. The All Night Picnic

The Doctor, Bill and Nardole were sitting in the light that came from the open doors of the TARDIS on one of their regular picnics. The sky was black, the perfectly smooth ground was ash grey, and the view was completely featureless.

"It's like someone decided to carpet the whole planet," commented Bill.

"Which is too boring to name" added Nardole. "It even gave up spinning because that was too interesting."

"All true," laughed The Doctor. "And therefore, it's very popular. Because by driving very fast around the equator, you get the odd sensation of staying still while having a whole day whizz past you as you move from the dark half through the sunny half and back into the dark half."

"So not boring after all, said Nardole, firmly put in his place," said Nardole.

"While we could be on the sunny side," Bill pointed out.

"We could," said The Doctor. "But then we'd miss this spectacular starry sky."

Which Bill and Nardole accepted, nodding in agreement.

After a while, between stargazing and reading her copy of Mwah! magazine, something occurred to Bill for the first time as she reached Mopus Forropus - The World's Greatest Astrologer's horoscope page.

"Where are we?" she asked. Then tried to explain. "I mean, Earth has all these constellations. But they don't appear the same from anywhere else. It's purely how the stars look from one viewpoint."

"That's right," said The Doctor. "So if I say we're on the other side of Pisces and Aquarius, that's meaningless too, since the stars that make up Pisces and Aquarius are really nowhere near each other. We can't see the back of them, so to speak."

Bill was checking the magazine illustration.

"Pisces is just a row of dots," she said. "Someone joined them up and made two fish. I never could see how. Who did that? Why these particular dots? Why not others? Someone else could have made anything else."

"Some patterns are obvious, though," said Nardole, pointing directly above. "I mean, that looks just like a great big - "

"Yes, thank you, Nardole, we've all seen it," interrupted The Doctor.

"Meanwhile! Horoscopes," said Bill.

"Imagine having THAT as your star sign!" continued Nardole.

The Doctor coughed deliberately loudly, hoping to close the subject.

"If it was yours," Bill said to Nardole, reopening it, "I'd be inclined to start believing them." Then, to The Doctor, "How do horoscopes work on other planets, then?"

"Exactly the same way they do on Earth," he replied. "That is, not at all."

"And in the never ending war between Astronomers and Astrologers, the Astronomers make another deadly assault," said Nardole.

Which The Doctor considered to be the satisfactory final word on the matter. Until Nardole added, "But you still use their names for the constellations."

To which there was no answer.


	5. The Christmas Picnic

"Knew it. Knew it. Knew it. Oh, I didn't know that. Knew it..."

Nardole was reading _'101 Things You Never Knew About Christmas Puddings'_ in Bill's copy of Mwah! magazine.

"I can't believe there's 101," said The Doctor, from the other side of the TARDIS console.

"Oh, there are," grinned Bill. "And they're all here!"

He wandered across, and, looking over Nardole's shoulder, couldn't help joining in.

"Knew it. Knew it. Knew it. Wrong. Knew it..."

"What's that?" asked Bill, of the small blue shoebox The Doctor was carrying.

"I thought it was time we had another picnic," he replied, handing it to her. "Not random, like usually. And we won't actually land. You two go over to the door."

He returned to the console and pushed a button.

"Right. We're here," he said. "Shut your eyes, open the doors, sit down."

They did as instructed.

"Now open them."

Like a beach ball floating just out of reach, was a planet exactly resembling a Christmas Pudding.

"No way!" said Bill.

"I thought you'd like it," said The Doctor.

"How did it get like that?"

"Volcanic eruptions over the whole planet. The brown and black lava solidified into swirls. The North Pole froze, covering the upper quarter with snow. Then, all it needed was _someone_ with more time on his hands than is decent, to come along and plant a forest of holly bushes right on top."

"Awesome," said Bill.

"Anyway," said The Doctor. "A Christmas picnic. I suppose this is a first for you?"

"Funnily enough, it is," agreed Bill. "They never really caught on as a tradition in Britain. Can't think why."

The Doctor gestured towards the shoebox.

"Now I see," said Bill, picturing a feast. She held it out so Nardole could do the honours.

He lifted the lid with a disappointed whimper.

"Not all your blue boxes are bigger on the inside, then," said Bill.

It contained a mince pie each and a cracker between them.

They ate the mince pies, then Bill and Nardole pulled the cracker, which had a feeble bang.

"It has got a bit of an aftershock," said The Doctor, weakly.

Bill took the joke, Nardole put the paper tissue crown on, and The Doctor was left with the motto.

"Well, it's old," warned Bill. "But that's acceptable at this time of year. Because it is a classic. _'What did Humpty Dumpty do with his hat?'_ " she read, catching sight of Nardole with his legs dangling out of the TARDIS. It was amusingly appropriate, she thought, unable to stifle a laugh, and alerting The Doctor to the scene. He, meanwhile, was over analysing the question, and gave up.

" _'What did Humpty Dumpty do with his hat?'_ " repeated Bill. " _'Humpty dumped his hat on the wall.'_ "

At which point, the aftershock from the cracker blew Nardole's crown up into the air.

"Your turn, Doctor," said Bill.

The Doctor nodded approvingly, and read out the motto : _"Merry Christmas to all of you reading at home!"_


	6. IT'S  CHRISTMAS !!  (somewhere)

Yaz was amused on returning to the TARDIS console room after a bit of a wander round exploring the rest of the ship.

"What?" said Ryan. "What have you found?"

"Of all the odd things... You'd never guess this." She held it up. "An old copy of Mwah! magazine. With 101 Things You Never Knew about Christmas Puddings."

"Ha!" said The Doctor. "That was Bill's. She was a great friend, was Bill... PING! Lightbulb moment! There's something amazing I have to show you! You'll love it! So Christmassy!"

"It's not Christmas," Graham pointed out.

"It is somewhere," The Doctor replied. "With a time machine, if you wish, it could be Christmas every day."

"He's in here," said Yaz, flicking to an interview. " _'What was your most embarrassing moment?'... ,_ " she read out.

"Go to the door, open it, shut your eyes," The Doctor said excitedly, while searching the TARDIS database for the coordinates. "Preprogammed!" she realised, and pressed a button. "We're here! You can open your eyes!" The Doctor announced, and waited for the acclaim.

"How is that even possible?" questioned Ryan, sounding a little nervous.

"No. It can't be! How did you do that?" wondered Yaz, suspecting a trick.

"What's going on?" asked Graham, not liking it.

"Thank you!" said The Doctor, moving away from the console.

And looking out of the front doors of the TARDIS as it floated in space, she saw that blocking out most of the view was the back of the TARDIS.

"Oops! The preprogramming has brought us a few feet behind, and at exactly the same time as my last visit. Yes, look, there's Nardole's little legs dangling below the door. We came here with Bill for a picnic."

Nardole's legs lifted back inside, and his TARDIS faded away, allowing Graham, Yaz and Ryan the intended, perfect but unlikely view of the planet that looked exactly like a Christmas Pudding.

The Doctor explained, "It's brown and swirly because it's solidified volcanic mud. The upper quarter is an ice cap. Then 'someone' planted a forest of holly bushes on top."

She enjoyed the deserved admiration.

"Well, then," said Ryan. "Merry Christmas, Yaz, Grandad."

"You too," Yaz replied.

"Likewise, guys," said Graham, adding, "And Happy New Year, whenever it is."

They watched as shooting stars whizzed by.

Sometimes, they were spaceships giving cruising passengers a new tradition.

The Doctor turned away.

And with her own tradition to keep up, brought this story to a close by pausing to say, "And a Merry Christmas to all of you reading at home. Whenever it is."


End file.
